Shashi Tharoor, a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs, is currently an MP for the Indian National Congress and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. He is the author of Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.

How BJP ruling affects the mob lynchings ?Even if congress was in power now will have to face same situation.Perhaps we should look for a remedy to stop this fake social media posts.But it is hard. So the best way to stop this fake social media post's is to educate the users, not to believe in it. If not ,soon criminals will take it as an advantage and use it for their benefits .

India isn't the only country grappling with sheer chaos on social media; so is the United States with millions of Breitbart trolls on the warpath against anyone and everyone perceived as different.

However, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram have, by far, become the biggest purveyors of fake news and trolls. They aren't small anymore, and shouldn't be treated that way. Since they have grown into multi-billion dollar companies with worldwide presence and an eclectic user base, it's necessary to regulate them.

I am all for freedom of speech and expression. But, the rules of the game are very simple. You shouldn't be allowed to get away with saying the same things on social media that you can in the real world.

Twitter and Facebook should be forced by governments to 'ID all their customers. This means if you have an account with these companies, you should have them verified with a government issued ID along with your real name, surname, Date of birth and valid address proof. If you don't want to share these details, do not create an account in the first place.

This may sound intrusive in the beginning. But, next time someone issues a rape or a murder threat online, they can be booked.

However, social media should never be used for defamation and libel cases. That would keep the platforms free and open.

We south asian people are communal in nature. The People from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh have the same disease. Pakistan is totally destroyed due to its religion based politics and principles where other religion people have few civil rights to lead life. Bangladesh got independence through a bloody war from Pakistan which country took some secular principle to remove religion from the principle of state. But this country also failed to continue it where people are divided secular or islamist. In South Asia only India have a goodwill to make a ideal and secular state where no religion is special one. But after 2014 election triumph, the NDA government leaded by Modi trying to give a 'Gerua' color, their IT cell is busy to spread hated speech against other religion specially muslim. Many Hindu organizations are growing up likely Taliban or other muslim extremist organization by direct or indirect patronizing by government. Recently Indian central minister Joyont Sinha welcomed some notorious criminals who are liable to kill a muslim man for doubt of carrying beef. There are a lot incidents like such where hindu extremists are sponsored by central or state government which are governed by BJP. Ultimately these activities would inspire the muslim extremist groups to spread their activities in South Asia where revenge is everything. We don't want another Pakistan where all kind of militant activities are sponsored and assisted by state and state agencies. Our tradition is to live together, the most of the people of this region poor, illiterate and deprived of their basic rights. If we busy against each other such kinds of social problem would be acute which ultimately turned ours toward the worst.

Dr. Tharoor, your party has been trolling Indians continuously since 1947 with the twisted message of secularism (code for “political correctness”) and its aim to forcibly impose multiculturalism (code for parity for Islam) on an unsuspecting public.

India is a hugely diverse set of cultures and languages but it is clear to all by now that one group with foreign origins have an especial hatred towards everything that makes India Indian. Selected members of this group do indulge in platitudes, but it doesn’t, or rather hasn’t changed the overall attitude.

Most Indians were simply too polite and concerned with their own well-being all this while, for speaking up against the obvious uncomfortable truth against the Left would incur their wrath. Most were too busy with their own lives and found political participation too time-consuming and intensive. Social media has changed that, and brought this silent, decent majority into the fore. Afforded the protection of digital anonymity, and given the ease and comfort of consuming media at their own leisure, social media has been singularly responsible for people speaking out far for freely than they otherwise would. You feeling uncomfortable because of this shows your party’s lack of comfort with free speech in general when it doesn’t go your way.

May I clarify my earlier post to suggest that in the context of Indian politics, multiculturalism is simply code for special privileges for Muslims. Indians are by and large comfortable with different cultures. The only group taking license with this to smear their trademark bigotry and hatred on the rest of India’s cultures is your party’s favorite religious vote bank.

You say you have a problem with keyboard warriors sharing innocuous threats on social media. Yes these merit serious attention. But what about the real-life trolling conducted by the well-oiled hate machine that is the Muslim clergy? Pray tell, would not the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1989, in response to not very subtle threats of rape and murder by clerics and extremists, be classed as trolling in today’s parlance?

Care to have an honest survey with Hindus living in Muslim-majority areas, and you wouldn’t be surprised with reports of regular slander, threats and general spite meted out by appeased members of your party’s vote bank. Trolling online, in comparison, is far far less of a threat, and the response by the state has been far far more severe than it merits.

You have to give Zuckerberg credit where it’s due - far more people are emboldened behind the anonymity of a computer screen than would dare appear in front of a live audience. This is just human nature. It is also more convenient. But this is the majority of people; the silent majority who simply have too much to lose by engaging in active politics, but still wish to make their voices heard. Most of them pay taxes. They have a legitimate opinion and so are their concerns legitimate, and the truth is they disagree with just so much of what your party, and the left in general, has done to India over the past 60 years. You wishing to shut them up on trumped up concerns of inciting violence speaks volumes of your double-standards, when the parties you ally with engage in the kind of trolling that would make the worst online troll blush - remember Owaisi? If you are so concerned about potential violence emanating from public discourse, surely your first port of call should be the umpteen Saudi funded madrassas cropping up all over India and observe the conversations of a few of their products - that is A-Grade trolling for you right there sir!

Were any government to actually take action to curb trolls, it would rightly be seen as a pushback against free, unfiltered speech.

SECULAR DEMOCRATS, SECTARIAN DEMOCRACYSecularism is a Truth that is Spiritualism at its best - and is not copyrightable.Because Spiritualism is a bounty that must percolate every religious boundary.And the fruits of the largesse produced is Enlightenment at its best.In branding Hinduism as incapable of Enlightenment.And in representing all other religions as Shareholders in Enlightenment.The audacity of the Author is incredible.Instead of attacking Modinomics failure to align India's Economics with Democracy and reversing the distorted Economic Geography that created The Marginalized Majority - that demolished Dynasty - the Author shows consistency. The legacy of Dynasty Economics that created Islands of prosperity relegating The Marginalized Heartlands to relative penury, seems so deliberate. Never promising to rectify the Regional Inequalities bequeathed, and the ferrago of fulminations always focussed on Religion appears to promise more of the same Sectarianism that got Dynasty Seven Decades in power. The moral high ground of Secular Democracy is the ultimate insult to Spiritualism - because in practice, Global Sectarian Forces foisted Sectarianism in India for Seven Decades. Dynasty was just a convenient scapegoat - bereft of intelligence to rectify the blatant blemishes. The extremists in any regime cannot be condoned - but when Religious Secularism becomes a blatant subterfuge for Sectarian Democracy, it is time to choose. As India will, and always has. Spiritualism is not copyrightable by Any Religion.

Shashi Tharoor highlights how India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi condones “lynch mobs” on social media. Last month, India’s top diplomat, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was the latest victim of cyber bulling after her office said it would take “appropriate action” against an official in Uttar Pradesh state. A Hindu woman married to a Muslim man complained about being verbally abused, and not getting their passports. Swaraj’s ministry promised to investigate and issued them their passports, angering Hindu nationalists and triggering a wave of abuse against her for allegedly appeasing India’s Muslim minority.Swaraj was the latest high-profile woman to be targeted by trolls on social media, an endemic problem for Indian women that has attracted scrutiny from the UN. Journalists and political activists are favorite targets of the BJP’s abusive supporters, who not only question their morals and disparage their looks, but routinely issue rape and murder threats. One BJP activist recently threatened on Twitter to rape the ten-year-old daughter of a Congress Party spokeswoman. There is deeply entrenched patriarchy and widespread misogyny in vast swathes of the country, especially in the north. The author accuses the BJP of cultivating “an army of cyber warriors to propagate its message of Hindu chauvinism and hyper-nationalism – and to launch vicious attacks on its opponents.” He compares the BJP hardliners to Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who had meddled with nature by creating a monster that endangered his own life and the lives of his family and friends, when the creature grew and escaped his control, seeking to revenge against him. Swaraj, a BJP leader was “a victim” of her party’s “own monster.” She was vilified and had to endure “insults and abuse.” She said the BJP has “poisoned social media in India with such toxic posts that venturing there is like stepping into the site of a nuclear accident: unless you actively protect yourself, you will be destroyed.” The extent of online abuse faced by prominent Indian women is so alarming that it drives some off social media and many to censor themselves. Moreover, “users can operate anonymously and at a safe distance from their targets,” and get away with their abusive behaviour. Thes author points out the harm these self-righeous believers of the BJP do on social media. Their cyber bullies just “say anything that crosses their minds. In India, as in many other countries, the platforms are also rife with falsehoods, spread without even the most elementary fact checking.” The “fake news” disseminated on social media “have led to mob lynchings of innocent people, resulting in over two dozens deaths. These people were falsely accused of being cow slaughterers, child kidnappers, or worse.” Social media, by nature, is a double-edged sword. The author says it should reward “speed and sensationalism, not verification and caution.” He points out that “even when the truth does come out, it rarely makes it as far as fast as the lie did.” Often it is too late because the damage can no longer be repaired. Indeed, “There is no easy solution: a wave of regulation could open the way for censorship of free expression on other media.” Politicans need to walk a tightrope, weighing the benefits of free speech and its curse. That Modi turns a blind eye to “hit squads” that remind a little of Hitler’s death squads, which were tasked with massacring racial or political enemies of the Nazi regime, should not come as a surprise, because the ideological arm of BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 as a volunteer organisation to advance the rights of Hindus. Over the years, it has given rise to many of the country’s more successful conservative politicians, including Modi. Some of its founders praised in essays and books the totalitarian movements of Nazism and fascism across Europe at the time. Straight out of the Nazi playbook, the Hindu nationalists had once spoken about “customised” babies, who, they hope, will be taller, fairer and smarter than other babies, according to a report in the Indian Express newspaper in May 2017.

Sadly, this problem seems global in nature. As you rightly point out, an attempt to curtail it with public policy could be worse than the disease itself. The real solution may be social and spiritual -- essentially a widespread rejection of deceit, half-truths, and mean-spiritedness. I feel the problem may have to become worse for enough people to move in that direction.

Excepted a more balanced opinion from you, instead of being politically motivated and biased judgement. Being on the world platform as it is, it is required to be holistically unbiased and see the problem as it is and not affiliate with something.I am not a cyber cell as said above or a staunch follower of either party. I am just an Indian which needs the problems of my country solved, irrespective of any political party bashing.

India is both figuratively an literally too far away for me to speak knowledgeably. However, even at my distance (in the USA), it was evident that Congress did a poor job of running India. Economic growth was limited and corruption was widespread. The Dabhol debacle dates back to the Congress party.

Predictably, Congress preached liberal multi-culturalism rather than practical government. Eventually, the people of India got fed up with Congress and removed it from power.

As for the BJP trolls, the same trends can be found in China. In China, western liberals are routinely denounced as Baizuo (literally "white left(ies)'"). In developing countries people are less tolerant of the fantasies of the elite.

Congress is subservient to its lackadaisical approach with arcane mindset, much away from ground and hearts of people, Like bad movies, tv serials, and ghettos of caste, religion the social media has coyed. When, in rule Congress blundered and never allowed good people to enter,, Only Influncials like yourself and local thugs, mafia make the party. And, While All other parties Prominently BJP succored middle class.. still , blaming the messenger and ignoring the message

The emerging Russian-Indian and Chinese relationship will be far less pertinent to the geopolitical stability of the global sphere than the emerging nationalism of Germany and the leftist leanings of Turkey....as the Germans manufacture and continue to distribute hundreds of millions of US $'s in weapons to those befriended especially in the last seven years w numerous Middle East countries to surround the "Brutes of Tehran" eventually to erupt in a global conflagration as Karl Guttenberg takes charge and a downsized EU causing much disruption in global stability...the points of this article are eye opening and example after example of abusive and political antagonism of adversaries heightened to a level of disrespect negating any prospect for Agreement among such diverse interests unwilling to compromise....

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